Tidelands – Marigolds

This trio may come from Virginia but I can’t help hearing something of Frightened Rabbit in Tidelands’ ‘Marigolds’. Could indeed be a dead end because the other track of theirs I’ve been spinning, ‘Holy Grail’ (see vid below), is a close relative to something put out by our very own Ambiance Affair. But for today we’ll concentrate on the closing track from ‘If…’, Tideland’s debut album. As goes with the territory of album bookends it is typically epic in nature, quietly so but still impressively cinematic. The brass swoops in delightful patterns and Gabriel Leis’ low-slung guitar softly punctuates 7-plus gorgeous minutes. Leis’ own vocals (Ian Brownish on occasion, not so much here) is all there is to break the swoosh and he copes well but the music is all-consuming. His band mate Mie Araki has a masters in jazz and you can see his hand at work because something that could have easily been incidental has been turned into something remarkable. They’ll soon be cleaning up. KD